Today I must confess to another sin of pre-judgement. I was wrong when I said The Book of Mom Bites. The End. Now that I have read all 261 pages, I can in confidence tell you that what I should have said was:

The Book of Mom Bites the Big Tuna. The End.

First, though, I’ll list the things I like about this book. Because I can only imagine how awesomely scary it must be to send forth one’s book to an uncaring world, like casting pearls before swine, or sending your firstborn to kindergarten. Will her teacher recognize that she is WELL above-average the first day?

What I like about The Book of Mom

I like that life/friendship/marriage/motherhood/people are portrayed as having so many ups and downs that it’s nearly impossible to determine whether they’re “good” or “bad.” But it’s hard to appreciate this when the characters and their relationships change too conveniently based on what kind of foil the narrator needs at any particular moment. (NM = Narrator Mom, BF = Best Friend):

NM Depressed = BF Perfect Example of All Good Things.
NM Enlightened = BF In Need of Reciprocal Wisdom.
NM Open to Husband = Husband Complete Jerk.
NM Resenting Husband = Husband Unexpectedly Sends Her to a Spa.

I like that tough topics are addressed: alcoholism, near-adultery, cancer, incest, borderline child abuse, unhappy marriages, and unfulfilled motherhood. But it’s hard to embrace this aspect because too often the revelation of a character’s issues (e.g.: BF witnessed father’s rape of sister, p 241) are transparent deux ex machina (ducks machines) tacked on ex post facto (after they would do any good plot-wise) that presumably explain otherwise incomprehensible behavior.

I like that these issues aren’t resolved satisfactorily. That resembles real life, right? But this is fiction, and some sort of resolution would be nice. If you don’t mind manufactured conflicts, surely manufactured solutions wouldn’t sully your writing aesthetic too much.

I like that friendship is so important to NM. I also sometimes wonder what on earth I’d do without my best friend. But NM’s friendships are a bit codependent, and I can’t help thinking that if she could be only one-tenth as understanding of and interested in her husband as she is her BF, she would have the best marriage on the planet. At one point (p 113), BF says “Honey, where have you been? We are married,” and I think that’s just wrong.

I could go on, about the fact that this book is fiction when it isn’t and full of New Age-y profundities that aren’t (p 237) and man-bashing (p 224-5) and dialogue so contrived and stilted (p 154) that at one point (p 226) BF asks NM: “Are you reading a script?” And all I can think, is, FINALLY, someone says something you might hear in real life.

Or I could point out how icky it is that in this work of “fiction,” NM finds the meaning of life in a workbook called A Course in Miracles, which happens to be the actual basis for seminars the author teaches in real life. Coming soon to a town near you: Taylor G. Wilshire (author) Teaches A Course in Miracles, Which Tate (“fictional” NM) Says Saved Her Life.

But I’ll just skip to the ickier and ickiest parts that make me want to pull out every strand of hair on my head. While jumping up and down on the ashes of this book.

Ickier Part of The Book of Mom

I think we can agree that the whole point of this book is figuring out how to embrace and enjoy (or at least survive) Mom-hood.

Right when NM reaches the bottom of her incredibly whiny downward spiral, she realizes that she and BF should create something together, “like a book that empowers children.” (I could point out here that TGW (author) is also coming out with a series of children’s books, but I’ll restrain myself). BF says the book should have a “parenting edge, like ‘Get off your cell phones, Blackberry, and email and be present for your children. . . . kids can’t wait, and we don’t get that time back with them. It’s lost.’” And NM says, “So your message is that parents should be connected and one with their children, living fully in the moment” (p 92).

The children’s book is written by NM and illustrated by BF. It is a success, and NM has to fly out-of-town for a signing on the same day that her oldest son has a special performance at school. He doesn’t understand why mommy won’t be there for him. NM explains:

I will be there; not in body but in spirit. . . my spirit is who I really am — it will be wrapped around tightly hugging you, embracing you. My words will be in your head telling you how much I love you. . . . If you get sad or scared, remember my heartbeat is tugging your heart. . . . I will be there every minute that you are there; I will not miss one beat, because my love will be all around you. . . . I’ll be the invisible power that walks in front of you and behind you. (p 175-6)

BUT I WILL NOT ACTUALLY BE THERE BECAUSE I WILL BE IN ANOTHER TOWN PROMOTING A BOOK ABOUT HOW TO PARENT CONSCIOUSLY BY BEING PRESENT FOR YOUR CHILDREN AND LIVING FULLY IN THE MOMENT.

Ickiest Part of The Book of Mom

Maybe we can agree that the other whole point of this book is that motherhood is a challenging, important thing, that, if approached with wisdom and love and balance, will be fulfilling. Also, armed with this new self-knowledge, a woman will feel that what she does as a wife and mother is of incomparable, intrinsic value.

NM’s strained marriage plays a big role in The Book of Mom, and, since the roles of mom and wife are often inseparably entwined, this should be a strength of the book. The biggest breakthrough in NM’s marriage comes when she is finally able to get her husband to see her as an equal partner after her new writing career takes off and she is a “working woman now. A working woman who got paid, that is — with money and respect.”

BECAUSE IF YOU ARE NOT GETTING MONEY FOR WHAT YOU DO, YOU DO NOT DESERVE RESPECT, EVEN FROM THE MAN WITH WHOM YOU HAVE CHOSEN TO BUILD A LIFE AND FAMILY WITH.

Of course there is nothing wrong with being a work-at-home mom or a working mom or a mom from Mars, but, please, do not tell me that those are the only options for a woman who expects equal partnership with her husband, or, heaven forbid, happiness. Do not advertise your book as a paean to finding sanity in being a stay-at-home mom and then slyly conclude that the only way you see it working is just that — for the mother to start really working. Have the guts and the wisdom and the insight, damn it, to share how you found being a MOTHER to be a viable role for women.

Or write a different book called The Book of Mom Who Earns Money. Just please don’t ask me to recommend it.

Review Disclosures

I am a mom and consider myself an expert on mom-ing.
I read books and consider myself an expert on reading books.
The very nice publicist asked me if I ever recommended books on my website and I promised to say exactly what I thought of it. She still sent me the book. Confidence like that is priceless in a publicist.

The Book of Mom bites. The End. (Or did you want to know why?)

First, it’s “fiction,” which means that the author wanted to write in first person but wanted to brag about being a former Fortune 500 executive, a former Type-A over-activitating Mom, a current burnt-out Who Am I? whiner-mom, and finally a born-again embrace-the-now REAL BOY MOM. Perhaps this hasty exaggeration is an attempt to portray EveryMom, but it actually reduces the protagonist to caricature.

Second, the revelations in The Book of Mom, including “motherhood is hard,” “being mom takes over your identity,” and, most revelatory of all, “even mom needs time to herself” would be revolutionary, soul-nourishing, and emancipatory, maybe, in a pre-Mommy Blogosphere or pre-Erma Bombeck or heck, pre-Virgin Mary (talk about a hard labor and your identity being entirely subsumed in your child) world.

Even Dooce, for whom I have expressed my love numerous times, kind of belabors the point in a recent Declaration of Mommy Blogger Independence post recently:

. . . I have every reason to believe that one day you will look at the thousands of pages I have written about my love for you, the thousands of pages other women have written about their own children, and you’re going to be so proud that we were brave enough to do this. We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around on our hands waiting for permission to do so. We have declared that our voices matter.

I cried while reading this post, as I often have violent emotional reactions, including anger, to Dooce’s writing. But, really, am I the only woman IN THE WORLD who never expected motherhood to be one long trip to Disneyworld without the sweating sunscreen and sore feet? My own mother, whom I would have chosen if I could have chosen any mother in the world, never told me that motherhood was a funfest. She said, or let me see (I’m the oldest of five), that it’s hard and unrewarded and exhausting and the most important thing I would ever do in my life.

Mommy Bloggers have been criticized recently for endangering and/or exploiting their children, disregarding privacy boundaries, and, worst of all, being even more narcissistic than ‘regular’ bloggers. I think these first two concerns are valid and have to be negotiated every time a mother leaves the house or picks up the phone to her best friend.

Narcissism is a criticism of a different order. Incidentally, if you exploit your children for gain on a blog or in a book, does that rule out narcissism, or are the kids only an extension of yourself and therefore a manifestation of your narcissism? Also, if you don’t make money from your blog, can you be “exploiting”? Mediocrity = virtuous mothering. Success = bad mom.

Another disclosure

I didn’t read past the first two chapters of The Book of Mom. It seems really unfair that I would negatively review something I didn’t finish, but I didn’t have to drink a whole Dr. Pepper to know it tastes like medicine or watch an entire episode of Baby Van Gogh to know it would rot the brains of fragile-minded toddlers.

Oh, I could skim the rest of it and at least pretend I’d given it a fighting chance. But that’s not how I choose the books or blogs I read. When I’m reading personal essays (most blogs and this book, however it is marketed), I like to read (and write for that matter) about everyday life in a way that makes me enjoy everyday life more. When I’m reading for escape (what I look for in “fiction”) I like to read books with words like swashbuckling, bitter-enemies-become-passionate-lovers, gothic-atmosphere, and female-detective-tracks-serial-killer on the back cover.

If you’re going to write fiction without any pirates or star-crossed lovers, but instead hold up a whinging, self-important mirror to the Modern American Mommy, at least try for some original complaints. I don’t know any mother who doesn’t wish she could go to the toilet by herself for once.

Which is not to say that Mommy writing or Mommy blogging is without value. Even though I need only pick up the phone or go to the playground to get commiseration on the joys and trials of motherhood, reading blogs that celebrate motherhood and books like Judith Warner’s that, while flawed, eloquently express the anxiety and frustration that accompany mothering is reassuring and liberating.

I read Rocks in My Dryer for a taste of Oklahoma-goody-two-shoes mothering and Confessions of a Pioneer Woman for a bit of cowboy escapism with my slice of life as a country mother and Scribbit for a dose of Northern Exposure Living mixed with Alaskan Family Fun magazine. That a 200ish-page book could be published and printed without a similarly-original hook to interest the busy-mom reader is frankly mind-boggling.

That’s all I can say about The Book of Mom, because, after all, I couldn’t finish it, and after more all, I’m self-interested enough to want to address the narcissism issue. When Socrates (via Thoreau for me) said that the unexamined life is not worth living, was that narcissistic? Does the talent of the writer influence whether her examination of life is narcissistic or not? (see Mediocrity, above). Could I ever make everyone happy by doing or writing what I think would please them? Would I stop writing about my kids and husband if they asked me to? (Dooce says absolutely).

In trying to construct my own philosophy of What One Should Write on One’s Blog, I was inspired by Jessica Hagy’s popular Indexed blog (via Freakonomics for me). In my legible-for-once handwriting:

I can only hope that when my daughters are old enough to be mothers themselves, they will read what I have written about them, and what thousands of other mothers have written about their own children, and know that I never lied to them: I didn’t enjoy the potty-training or the whiny, high-pitched voices or the syrup on the carpet or the embarrassing runs to the ER for croup or the daily ruining of nice clothes or the stinky poop in diapers or, worse, on the carpet, but I did enjoy them. I enjoyed making them laugh by playing the Look Away game and the chubby fingers tugging on my face to get my attention.

They are the reason I am not even more self-absorbed and impatient and intolerant. They are why I get up in the morning and why I feel guilty when I stay up too late. They are why I am who I am today.

And, narcissistic as that may be, I like who I am today. I like that three beautiful, innocent, forgiving, loving, growing, changing human beings call me Mommy.

I am mommy: hear me blog.

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Mommy blogging’s what works for me this week. For a more complete review of The Book of Mom, especially if you find it unfair that I’d review it without reading the whole thing, see The Book of Mom, Redux.